Writing circles are "small groups... meeting regularly to share drafts, choose common writing topics, practice positive response, and in general, help each other become better writers" (Vopat, 2009, p. 6). In this exploratory study, writing circles were employed with elementary teacher candidates in hopes of enhancing their perceptions…

The aim of this study was to explore how "Narrative Theatre," a narrative-centered digital learning environment, supported the writing processes of 3 struggling adolescent male writers. We utilized a multicase study approach to capture 3 sixth-grade participants' experiences with the digital learning environment before, during, and after…

There is currently a dearth of research inquiring into the ways that pre-service teachers (PSTs) are prepared to teach writing, including reading and responding to student writing. Furthermore, although the benefits of a practice-based approach to teacher education are widely cited, increasing financial and legislative pressures to shorten the…

Studies that specifically test the effectiveness of instructional procedures for improving the writing of young African American males who experience difficulty learning to write are almost nonexistent. Although writing intervention studies include these children, researchers rarely disaggregate their data to determine whether the writing…

There is a lot of contradictory advice out there about writing a dissertation. Some people say write every day until a certain word count is reached, or until a set amount of time has passed. Some people say they work best when they write everything all at once, usually looking down the barrel at a looming deadline. In this article, the author…

Writing is one of the most important aspects in English language acquisition. Teaching writing has its own challenges since there are some steps and requirements that teachers should prepare to undertake in the classroom. This article is aimed to discuss teaching and learning writing in the classroom based on theoretical conceptualisation. In…

This study used a multiple-probe, multiple-baseline single-case design to investigate the efficacy of planning, and then revising strategy instruction using self-regulated strategy development on the compare-contrast writing performance of three late elementary students with language-learning disabilities. After receiving the planning instruction,…

Participants in this study completed an online experiment in which they wrote essays by stylus or keyboard. Three translation measures (length of language burst, length of pauses, and rate of pausing) and four transcription measures (total words, total time, words/minute, and percent spelling errors) for composition were analyzed for two research…

This study is an analysis of the curriculum used to teach writing at one US high school in which outcomes for students were extremely strong. The study surfaces what was different in the approach used from what is typically understood and promoted as best practice in the teaching of writing. It does so in order to surface what elements of writing…

Although the effectiveness of computer-mediated collaborative writing (CMCW) is confirmed by many recent studies, only a few have investigated whether linguistic knowledge and writing skills learned through collaboration can be internalized and transferred to individual writing. This study uses a pre-and post-test design to investigate the impact…

This article reports on a study that suggests ways that Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines (WAC/WID) programs can increase the effectiveness of their efforts, including implementation of writingintensive courses, which are one of the Association of American Colleges and Universities' High-Impact Educational Practices. The…

While much attention has been paid to the borders between those within and beyond the discipline of composition, the primary goal of this project is to examine the discourses which exist within composition and, subsequently, how these discourses might work to undermine pedagogy and scholarship. I take the position that even those working directly…

Conducting focus groups with target audiences to assess user needs is a critical step in the process of designing and developing a web-based writing environment. This descriptive study examined focus group data gathered to address two questions: First, do data from focus groups affirm and expand our understanding of writing and writing development…

Disappointed that the use of the "PEEL" writing scaffold had led her Year 11 students to write some rather dreary essays, Claire Simmonds reflected that a lack of specific training on historical writing might be to blame. Drawing on genre theory and the work of the history teaching community, Simmonds attempted to theorise the…

The present study examined the effects of languaging by asking four pairs of Chinese university English as a foreign language (EFL) students to rewrite a story from a different perspective through three stages (composing--comparing- revising). Multiple sources of data were collected, including pair discussions, co-constructed writings, individual…